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Mozilla has laid off 70 people, TechCrunch reports. It's a significant move for an organization that employs around 1,000 people worldwide.

"You may recall that we expected to be earning revenue in 2019 and 2020 from new subscription products as well as higher revenue from sources outside of search," wrote Mozilla interim CEO Mitchell Baker in a memo to staff obtained by TechCrunch. "This did not happen."

Baker said Mozilla had decided not to shelve its $43 million innovation fund, which focuses on creating new Mozilla products. She said Mozilla would provide "generous exit packages and outplacement support" to those who were let go.

Each year, companies pay hundreds of millions of dollars to be the default search engine in Mozilla's flagship Firefox browser. Google has been Mozilla's primary customer over the years, but at various times Mozilla has also had deals with Yahoo!, Yandex, Baidu, and other search providers. In recent years, these deals have accounted for more than 90 percent of Mozilla's revenue.

Mozilla generated $429 million in royalty revenue (mostly from these search deals) in 2018, the most recent data available.

The market share of Mozilla's flagship browser, Firefox, has been steadily declining for at least a decade. And Mozilla's leadership is understandably nervous about having so much of its budget dependent on a single revenue stream. So the organization has been trying to develop new lines of business.

Mozilla is developing a virtual private network service. It will include an option to provide device-wide privacy protections for $4.99 per month. However, the service isn't yet available to the public—would-be customers are invited to "join the waitlist."

Mozilla briefly offered an enterprise support option for $10 per user but then removed the option days later. A spokesperson said that Mozilla was "still exploring" an enterprise offering but wasn't ready to start offering one just yet.

Mozilla has developed a variety of products, including file-transfer software and a password manager. But none has gained significant traction or generated much revenue for Mozilla.

Further Reading

Mozilla has struggled to adapt as the Internet increasingly shifted to mobile devices and has been increasingly dominated by a handful of large companies. In the desktop era, millions of people went out of their way to download and run Firefox. In the mobile era, by contrast, most customers stick with the defaults provided by Apple or Google, respectively. Apple's App Store rules effectively make it impossible for Mozilla to offer a full-fledged Firefox browser on iOS. Firefox on iOS is based on Apple's WebKit rendering engine, making it difficult for Mozilla to distinguish itself on the platform.

In the early 2010s, Mozilla tried to counter this strategic threat by developing its own mobile operating system called Firefox OS that was built entirely on Web technologies. But the platform didn't get significant traction from smartphone makers, and Mozilla ultimately abandoned it in 2017.

I tried Firefox for Android when it first came out. It actually took several seconds to load and was really slow. It may have gotten better since then, but I now use Samsung Internet, which is just as fast as chrome, but supports ad blockers.

On the desktop I use Brave.

I've been using mobile Firefox for some time now, it's snappy and good on my Pixel 2. Also supports addins, so I have ublock origin running on it as well. They are currently working on a replacement browser that significantly upgrades the mobile experience; the most recent build merged the building blocks for addon support (not there yet, mind you, but soon!) so I'll be migrating to that soon.

I use Firefox on desktop as well; it's basically the best browser for privacy on the internet at this time.

I use Firefox on Android. It's slower than Chrome I'm sure, but I hate Chrome on both desktop and mobile, so it's not really an option. Firefox is "good enough" and I can add ublock origin to it.

Browser makers always seem to be in a bit of a pickle funding wise. They have to find some way to monetize their product without pissing off the userbase and as Mozilla has demonstrated in the past.... that ain't easy. Failing that, they need to provide some other compelling product or service, and just let the browser be a loss-leader.

On desktop I use both Vivaldi and Firefox. I rather like Firefox's container tabs feature.

Ah, "outplacement services," the practice of executives salving their consciences by pawning ex-employees off on overpriced consultants who teach pointless resume-writing classes in the guise of "branding."

I thought it was great they positioned themselves recently as the choice browser for people who puts their privacy first, but turns out that doesn’t make you money. I hope they survive this, I like the quantum redesign!

The one thing I miss about Firefox is the drop-down lists for Live Bookmarks RSS feeds. No matter, because I still use it on Desktop and Android. It is slower than Chrome on Android, but the interface is much better. Also, I'm not sure what the problem is but when I download an image to share, it's easier to locate if I downloaded it from Firefox than from Chrome... one goes to the Download folder, the other goes into temporary something somewhere?

Firefox on mobile is a bit slower than Chrome, but I attribute that a little bit to using adblock and ghostery. It also gives a few more controls as a user on what and where you want to zoom on pages compared to chrome and I find easier to pop into desktop mode.

I've been using Firefox since it was called Phoenix, and Firebird. Because I remember what a browser monopoly does to innovation on the WWW (Internet Explorer days), I will not switch until they stop developing Firefox. I continue to donate to Mozilla because I firmly believe in their mission to stand up against Chrome.

I would PAY for an @firefox email address. It’s also basically free advertisement for the brand. $5 per annum? Sign me up! Or tie it in with an online storage solution deal. I’m sure a ton of people would donate for Firefox, like Wikipedia. Don’t charge enterprise for browser functionality, that’s a surefire way to alienate the browser.

I tried Firefox for Android when it first came out. It actually took several seconds to load and was really slow. It may have gotten better since then, but I now use Samsung Internet, which is just as fast as chrome, but supports ad blockers.

On the desktop I use Brave.

EDIT: Mozilla really needs to innovate. Me-too products with little or no differentiation from competitors will get them nowhere.

If you think that Firefox is slow, my first impression would be that you haven't tried it in the last couple years. If you think that Mozilla only makes copycats of other existing stuff, I have to assume you aren't familiar with the Rust Language, WebAssembly, Multi Account containers, Mozilla's work with Cloudflare to provide fast and private DNS, MDN, and a long list of other things.

Sure, they were late to the game improving their dev tools, supporting multiprocess, sandboxing, and faster Javascript. But I'd argue that Mozilla's implementation of all of these things is better than what they were "copying".

This is unfortunate to hear. Mozilla's branding these days is quite refreshing in contrast to other business practices today, although I understand they operate a kind of hybrid non-profit and corporate model. I've fully converted back to Firefox after they've made considerable improvements to their rendering engine and because Chrome has become far too Google centric for my taste. With today's state of affairs, my vote of protest goes to Mozilla.

Firefox Preview (codename Fenix) deserves a mention, as it will supersede the current Android browser (Fennec). The latter has been in maintenance mode for some time.

The new browser is very nice so far, design is spot on. It still has ways to go to reach feature parity with Fennec, notably extensions are not there. Its rendering is buttery smooth though and the interface is IMO already better than the current. I hope they will be able to get a nice chunk of usage share with it.

Firefox Preview (codename Fenix) deserves a mention, as it will supersede the current Android browser (Fennec). The latter has been in maintenance mode for some time.

The new browser is very nice so far, design is spot on. It still has ways to go to reach feature parity with Fennec, notably extensions are not there. Its rendering is buttery smooth though and the interface is IMO already better than the current. I hope they will be able to get a nice chunk of usage share with it.

As a Firefox diehard on desktop I want to like Firefox on mobile but I just don't like how any of the versions handle tab management. Brave has been my best Chrome alternative so far terms of getting the UX stuff right while being not-Google and having an adblocker.

That's problem #1, there is no reason Mozilla needs to be in San Francisco

My guess is that it has to do with the huge talent pool in the region. Easy for a company to drive down wages when there are tens of thousands of qualified people who are clamoring for a job, making them outbid each other for who will go for the lowest wage, or even have stagnant wages for current employees under the threat of "if you don't like it we'll find someone to do it for cheaper".

I've been using Firefox since it was called Phoenix, and Firebird. Because I remember what a browser monopoly does to innovation on the WWW (Internet Explorer days), I will not switch until they stop developing Firefox. I continue to donate to Mozilla because I firmly believe in their mission to stand up against Chrome.

I find this whole "stand-up against chrome" argument to be nonsense. Webkit is open source. Chromium is open-source. There are "I googled" versions of Chrome including Brave, which is a privacy oriented version of Chrome built by a Mozilla employee. If the rendering engine and JS back-end were closed source it would be one thing, but do we really need more than one if it's open source?

Note that I am not advocating for Firefox to go away, however, blind fanboyism isn't a good thing. Mozilla needs to innovate. I have a few ideas on how they can do that (it involves a partnership with duck duck go, a Firefox.com email address, a GOOD password manager, and some cloud storage all tightly integrated with Firefox). However, the talking heads at Mozilla apparently haven't figured it out. On top of that, they need to work on closing the speed gap along with their Linux version.

To nitpick, Brendan Eich is very much not a Mozilla employee anymore. Also Chrome has been using their own fork of WebKit for some time, Blink.

The stand up against Chrome is in part because the dominance of their engine gives too much power to Google to shape the Web in a direction that is most beneficial to them. Add to that the privacy concerns.

I tried Firefox for Android when it first came out. It actually took several seconds to load and was really slow. It may have gotten better since then, but I now use Samsung Internet, which is just as fast as chrome, but supports ad blockers.

On the desktop I use Brave.

EDIT: Mozilla really needs to innovate. Me-too products with little or no differentiation from competitors will get them nowhere.

If you think that Firefox is slow, my first impression would be that you haven't tried it in the last couple years. If you think that Mozilla only makes copycats of other existing stuff, I have to assume you aren't familiar with the Rust Language, WebAssembly, Multi Account containers, Mozilla's work with Cloudflare to provide fast and private DNS, MDN, and a long list of other things.

Sure, they were late to the game improving their dev tools, supporting multiprocess, sandboxing, and faster Javascript. But I'd argue that Mozilla's implementation of all of these things is better than what they were "copying".

I last used it 3 months ago, and also use it also with Selenium. In my Selenium testing, it was over 20% slower when running over 2,000 automated tests on a web application, and over 40% slower than headless chrome. We still run our tests against it of course.

That's problem #1, there is no reason Mozilla needs to be in San Francisco

To say that is to ignore harsh realities. The best software brains are in the Bay Area, so the best software jobs move there. Consequently, the emerging software brains follow the plum jobs to the Bay Area. Cycle repeats.

I live in Los Angeles, which has a burgeoning scene of its own, and my cousin who graduated locally with a computer science degree still found it necessary to his career goals to move to Oakland (despite being barely liquid at the time). Granted that was several years ago, but my understanding is that things have not changed significantly.

If they brought back the Firefox Plushie fundraiser I'd buy one in a heartbeat. Been a FF user since 2.0 through all the ups and downs, FF is certainly on an up right now in terms of the browser itself. Chrome had weird bugs in the early days and by the time it matured it was memory heavy and a vortex for google to get data, no thanks. Really with FFOS had been pivoted to a Chromebook competitor after the whole phones and tablets angle failed

Firefox on mobile is a bit slower than Chrome, but I attribute that a little bit to using adblock and ghostery. It also gives a few more controls as a user on what and where you want to zoom on pages compared to chrome and I find easier to pop into desktop mode.

It might be a bit slower, but for me with ublock origin the experience says "faster" for a lot of random sites I click-through to regularly.

I would PAY for an @firefox email address. It’s also basically free advertisement for the brand. $5 per annum? Sign me up! Or tie it in with an online storage solution deal. I’m sure a ton of people would donate for Firefox, like Wikipedia. Don’t charge enterprise for browser functionality, that’s a surefire way to alienate the browser.

Hmm a Mozilla-branded online storage (whether sync, backup, or both) would certainly be something I'd be interested in. I wonder if they could do something integrated with Backblaze.

In my extremely biased opinion, Fx is the best on Windows and Android. Couldn't comment on Apple products. It's also good on Linux. 400M is plenty to keep developing a browser, and I think they should focus on increasing that market share rather than VPNs and other ventures. But hopefully they can do some of both.

I've been using Firefox since it was called Phoenix, and Firebird. Because I remember what a browser monopoly does to innovation on the WWW (Internet Explorer days), I will not switch until they stop developing Firefox. I continue to donate to Mozilla because I firmly believe in their mission to stand up against Chrome.

I find this whole "stand-up against chrome" argument to be nonsense. Webkit is open source. Chromium is open-source. There are "I googled" versions of Chrome including Brave, which is a privacy oriented version of Chrome built by a Mozilla employee. If the rendering engine and JS back-end were closed source it would be one thing, but do we really need more than one if it's open source?

Note that I am not advocating for Firefox to go away, however, blind fanboyism isn't a good thing. Mozilla needs to innovate. I have a few ideas on how they can do that (it involves a partnership with duck duck go, a Firefox.com email address, a GOOD password manager, and some cloud storage all tightly integrated with Firefox). However, the talking heads at Mozilla apparently haven't figured it out. On top of that, they need to work on closing the speed gap along with their Linux version.

To nitpick, Brendan Eich is very much not a Mozilla employee anymore. Also Chrome has been using their own fork of WebKit for some time, Blink.

The stand up against Chrome is in part because the dominance of their engine gives too much power to Google to shape the Web in a direction that is most beneficial to them. Add to that the privacy concerns.

Google doesn't own webkit. Chromium can be forked any day of the week.

That is of course an option, but a near impossible task, especially for a startup. Good luck keeping up with the regular massive code dumps of Chromium, or keeping the fork relevant.

Edit: And it would still be pretty much the same thing as the original. If one has a very good idea to extend Chromium or Blink with, one would have better chance of seeing it happen contributing it, maybe with an eye on getting a job with Google...